To want to end relationship with my brother because I cba?

[MissChatterbox1]

Hello and thanks for reading.

Im going to sound awful for this post I know but I need to vent it and get impartial advice. I’m prepared for vipers.

Background: I have 5 half siblings. I grew up in the same house with 4 of them. We are all adults now with our own families and get on well but not close.
The fifth sibling was my dads son who is 15 years older than me and I did not grow up with and did not know or meet until after my dad died.

Met this sibling when I was 19 and they were 34. They have no other siblings.
He’s a nice man but due to the age gap and not being raised together we have 0 in common.
However due to him having no siblings he has tried really hard over the years to force a relationship.
He’s gone out of his way to make this happen. Travelling across the country to things like my graduation and the birth of my child. Sending presents and cards on birthdays and at Christmas. Always trying to ring me and arrange meet ups.
He has a wife and kids and they are also super enthusiastic to have a relationship.

Now this is where I feel an awful person. I do not reciprocate the feelings at all and find it smothering and a bit weird if I’m honest.
We have nothing in common other than sharing a dad neither of us really knew.
He makes more effort than me and my siblings do for eachother and is really over familiar. When he and his family come they insist on staying in my house when my own siblings get a hotel. I have a house with spare rooms so can’t really say no but it’s awkward.
They try and arrange joint family holidays which I make excuses not to do and send me drawings their kids have done in the post.

Because we weren’t raised together and there is a huge age gap it’s essentially a stranger trying to exert themselves into your life at every opportunity.
My other siblings I have little in common with but we have a shared history and familiarity so have our own banter and jokes and understand each others quirks and ways so I can spend a weekend with them and tell them to go away or whatever. When they’re being annoying. My nieces and nephews feel like ‘mine’ and it feels like family and not a weird chore i’m doing.

Since having my child my brother and his family have stepped it up a notch and constantly want to meet and be in contact as he’s an ‘uncle’ now.
Their kids ranging from 2 - 19 year old (massive age gaps) call me auntie and my DP uncle and it feels awkward as they are literal strangers.
My DB and his wife will try and give parenting tips on visits which comes across as rude as critical because there is no foundation of a relationship like our own siblings so it feels like a stranger/acquaintance saying it.

I have tried to distance myself over the years but they don’t get the hint. I don’t respond to calls and take days to reply to texts but they still persist. They will go through their calendar for that year until they find a date we are free for a visit even if it’s 6 months away. They send expensive and thoughtful presents for all our birthdays which makes me feel indebted to them to continue the relationship.
They've even tried to ‘book on’ to our family holidays when we’ve told them we’re going somewhere (saying they might come too and looking up tickets on their phone there and then, I’m not joking!).
They keep pestering to spend Christmas together which I’ve managed to bat off! We have loads of other very close family and now our own kids to be contending with, we don’t want to host strangers on top on Christmas Day and it’s weird they even want to spend such a day together.

I know it sounds selfish but I have loads of siblings already as does DP. Infact DP has 4 full siblings who also have families so between us we have loads of siblings, nieces and nephews which is difficult enough to keep up with. However my DB and his family demand more attention than all our siblings put together! Because they only have me as ‘family’ they put all their attention onto us.

I personally would be happy with just sending an annual Christmas card and seeing their updates via social media at most. I don’t have the time or interest.
But I don’t want to hurt them either. They are nice people. I understand they want extended family as they don’t have it, but I can’t provide it.

What do I do?

I’ve tried every kind of ‘drifting away’ method possible. I feel like the only way out is to have some kind of huge fall out and go no contact because they will go to such great lengths to maintain this relationship that there is no other way. Even if I up and moved to Australia I have 0 doubt they’d use their annual leave to visit annually. That’s how full on they are.

You sound awfully cold, OP.

He's not the one being weird, here. You are!

Thank you to the recent posters who get my point of view and why I feel as I do.

In regards to the gifts I did not ask for them or know they were coming. An Amazon delivery guy just showed up a bunch of stuff. I actually thought it was from my mum as the gifts were larger items that a parent would buy their adult child for their first house.

It was only after when they’d obviously had the delivery notification that I get a call saying ‘do you like xyz?!!’

They do the same with any occasion. I even told them last year to not send us anything as we cannot afford to reciprocate and don’t need anything so really don’t want anything. They ignored it and said ‘we don’t give to receive’

It’s almost manipulation in some ways. Like before they said they couldn’t afford s hotel when I asked them to book one due to renovations. They insisted on sleeping in the living room after checking proves of hotels. Then on their last day a delivery man rocks up with £200 worth of presents to ‘thank us’ for hosting them. A hotel would have cost them less than half the price of the gifts!! I would much rather they used that money for a hotel than the needless gifts. It made no sense!

I really don’t understand the mentality.

I've RTFT and I understand that however well-meant and 'nice' this man is, you are having issues accepting him as anything more than a 'stranger' (factually this is not the case, you have a blood tie to him and years of experiences with him) and you struggle to receive/accept his attention/help/gifts/support, seeing it instead as inappropriate on his part.

If you can afford it, you might want to seek therapy about how being brought up with half-siblings and discovering your dad had yet another child, only after he'd died, has affected you.

@readingmytealeaves I might more readily agree if he’d turned up to see the new house with a massive expensive TV. Nobody buys “loads” (I mean that’s 3 minimum, right?) of white goods without some input from the receiver. Giving them time to work on being overwhelmed and awkward, and turn that into a, “it’s too much - thanks but no.” She’d bought a house - she wasn’t the 19yo then.

I met my half sister and half brother in my late 20's. I am the oldest. I love them dearly and even though they both have severe mental health struggles. They aren't strangers they are my siblings.
I think you are very lucky to have grown up with your other siblings. Sounds like you have decided you have nothing in common. I don't have a lot in common with mine but I try my best. They are family.

Correcting myself, re-read as OP cross posted about Amazon which didn’t fit with white goods.

OP, you said household appliances, which I read as white goods type items, but actually sounds like you meant more things like toasters?

So my apologies for that. It also means the cost may have been lower than I assumed you accepted (toasters being cheaper than dishwashers, for example!)

Still, you could and should have flexed your “no” back then, and the fact you never have has led you here - where you feel a point of no return.

@ItsCalledAConversation i didn’t ‘discover him’. Always knew about him but never had contact due to him living the other side of the country and my dad having little to do with either of us.

After he died we ended up meeting through funeral arrangements when we were notified of his death.

I don’t feel any trauma or upset about my dad or his side of the family. I really don’t care. I have my family that I love and have no yearning for any biological relations there may be wondering around out there.

My brother on the other hand has little family and always wanted siblings. It was just him and his mum and a few relatives on his mums side but not many.

I think he built up in his head what having siblings is like into a Disney image. In his mind siblings are close and go on family holidays and their kids are all close and it’s great. Real life can be like that but also there is a lot of nuance, bickering, shared history and ups and downs.

If I was to send my other siblings extravagant gifts for example they’d probably ask if I’d come into some money or was in poor health or something. Likewise if I was to ask where they were going on holiday and then say ‘oh me and my family will come too!’ They’d tell me to piss off or that if I insist on coming I’m staying at a different hotel or something. No offence would be caused because we get eachother and can also bicker and no damage be caused.
Me and my brother don’t have this type of relationship and never will.
It’s a relationship only siblings raised together will have. We can drive each other crazy and have some stand up rows but then the next day be laughing about something like nothing has happened.

It’s not something you ‘build’ once adults or create through visits and forced fun. That security/safety/familiarity only comes from being reared together imo.

Sounds like they're like stalkers OP.
No idea how you'd get it to stop and I understand your frustration.

I disagree. I am close with my sister and I also have friends I've met in adulthood who are like my sisters. I think bonds can be created at any age.

“Likewise if I was to ask where they were going on holiday and then say ‘oh me and my family will come too!’ They’d tell me to piss off or that if I insist on coming I’m staying at a different hotel or something. No offence would be caused because we get eachother and can also bicker and no damage be caused.
Me and my brother don’t have this type of relationship and never will. “

You never gave him a chance to bicker with a “piss off” then no damage done, because you never said no. At least - not much of a chance. Afterall, you said no to Xmas and no lasting damage was done. It’s fine to pull away completely, you don’t owe anyone a relationship. But if you don’t want to cut ties completely, try acting more like a sibling, saying no and expecting him to accept it.

@Testina one of them was a white goods item they knew I didn’t have, a tumble dryer plus a few more items. Probably around £250 - £300 worth. Which is why I thought my mum had got it for me.

They rang me when I was at the launderette. I said I was using it until I get set up so I couldn’t speak for an hour on the phone as was busy. 2 days later and it shows up. Thoughtful but really unnecessary.

You are very much not being unreasonable! I can’t understand the bizarre, sentimental, “YABU” responses you are getting. You don’t know this person, had no authentic relationship growing up, and don’t enjoy the interaction s you do have now. That is completely understandable!

In this age of easy DNA searches many people may find long lost half siblings—or even full siblings—who they have had no relationship with prior to adulthood. OP is not obligated to fulfill this man’s fantasies of close sibling bonding just because her father once spawned with this guy’s mother!

Just be frank with him. “We are busy that weekend…we don’t have space for guests just now…we can’t make plans with you six months in advance…you can not come with us on vacation.” Short declarative sentences only. If they persist just say “this is not a negotiation. I am letting you know what works for us.”

This.

You should just tell him straight that you do t want a relationship. He will be crushed, but you will definitely do him a favour in the long term. Nobody needs people like you in their lives.

Don’t have them in your house to stay; just say it’s not convenient, you haven’t room or time or energy for hosting house guests.

Don’t feed them in your house either, if they don’t share your eating habits (a not very cryptic reference to veganism) . Meet them for a meal if you have to, though I bet they will find it difficult to get a venue.

Having read all your responses, I think you have been rather trapped into this ‘relationship’ , it isn’t easy to set boundaries when someone who could almost have been your father in age terms turns up and comes on as strong as this. Then the pattern is set , and they don’t seem to be particularly sensitive or good at picking up social clues.

I have no idea about smartphones, but we have an answer machine and an identifier on our phone so we can see if it is a certain family member…..so we pretend to be out. Then we ring back at a time when we can make it clear that we only have ten minutes to talk.

So I would try to scale this right down, quite deliberately, but without completely cutting them off. Managed withdrawal as the army says.

BTW, I wouldn’t be upset by all the people praising the sanctity of random dna connections. Tomorrow they will be urging someone to go no contact with a much closer relative over some minor slight.

Mirror, mirror….

If you've been doing this 10 years, and you still feel like he's a stranger to you and you don't value your relationship with him or his family one bit then probably best you just cut ties.

It really does seem like you just can't be arsed with him at all. Seems like you could not care less about him or his family and would rather he just went away and ceased to exist.

You can force a relationship, but it seems like he's tried really hard to give it a bloody good go. Shame for him and his family really.

Sorry op, but you sound awful. He sounds like a good person who just wants to connect. You had the luck to be brought up with half siblings, he didn’t.
My husband has two nieces who live in Australia. I’ve met them twice. They’re now in their twenties, but when one was over here recently, we welcomed her and even though I’m not related to her by blood, she’s still my niece and my dd’s cousin. I love her like family.
I feel sorry for your brother that his only family is you. Try to be a bit kinder.

Would you mum tend to send you a tumble dryer without telling you?!

That would piss me right off - even if I were minded to accept it as a gift, I’d still want a say in the size, colour and features!

But this is what I mean by not letting the relationship ever develop into something where you disagree or refuse or even fall out over - and recover.

You could have said, “bro - I get that it’s meant kindly but that’s totally overstepping. I don’t want a tumble dryer from you, and I want to choose my own appliances when I do get them. You need to arrange a return.”

Maybe you’d have got an apology and quick pick up.
Maybe you’d have got whiny / offended / huffy crap… and if so, you’d have found out whether you had a relationship that could take it.

So try it out now. Stand up for yourself, start saying no. Either you’ll come out with a more balanced relationship (which is sounds like you wouldn’t mind) or he’ll piss off completely which gives you another outcome you’re happy with 😉

There’s just nothing to lose now by being HONEST.

All easy to say. Come back when you’ve realised you gave nothing in common with his niece, and yet she phones you for an hour every week putting her kids on, comes to stay with you every year, expects you to visit her, and tries to book onto your family holiday.

Would you do all that, to be kind?

You’re not comparing like with like.

Yeah, I would! I do that already with other family members. The op’s bother is probably only still trying so hard because he’s getting so little back.

He values and cares about you enough to massively make an effort. If you want fewer calls, explain that you’ve become very busy and so having a fixed day/time would work better once a week. Be proactive about fixing a visit so that you can steer when it will be. Make it easier by choosing a weekend where you can book to go to a day event together to give the visit a focus.

Having people who care if you’re gone really matters. And sometimes being the person who cares (or at least makes it seem that way) matters too.

@itsmylife7 gratuitously nasty comment making out the brother and family are stalkers. You’re well out of order.

OP….yes, you are being horrible. But then that’s you. Your brother obviously values having family, and you couldn’t care less. He’s better off without you.

I get where you’re coming from. Meeting my dad was similar. I didn’t throw my arms round him and cry like they did on Surprise Surprise, it was just a strange man.

Nobody has a right to demand your time, family or not. You choose who you spend your time with. If it doesn't suit you, just stop responding to him.